The Cold Lake Sun predicted thousands would turn up at the polls to vote in the civic election last week.

That estimate was optimistic, however, as only 1,814 out of 11,170 eligible voters cast a ballot, which means only 16 per cent of the qualified city population voted.

“Terrible,” said Helen Runke, a local citizen about the voter turnout, in a comment on the Cold Lake Sun’s Facebook poll about the election.

Despite the low voter turnout, it is up from the last election in 2013, which only saw an 11 per cent voter turnout.

Voter turnout in civic elections has been declining significantly since 2004.

If you don’t vote then you should not complain, said Cold Laker, Robin Smith-Ward.

She said she voted because she cares about what happens in this community.

“It’s every citizen’s responsibility to (vote),” said Ed Machtmes, a local business owner. “We can neglect it, preferring to complain or be cynical, but we can never escape the consequences of ignoring that responsibility.”

The Cold Lake Sun polled about 100 people last week about if they voted, and, if not, why not.

About 17 people who responded to the Sun’s poll, said they didn’t know who to vote for on Election Day, although there were two candidate forums leading up to the election that were live streamed to Facebook and an informal meet and greet with candidates at the Cold Lake Public Library.

Although an email went to all military members on the base, encouraging all eligible Canadian Forces members to vote, some did not, citing that because they move around a lot and don’t intend to be life-long residents of Cold Lake, they decided not to vote in the city’s election.

However, there were some who were some military members recently posted to Cold Lake who wanted to vote, but couldn’t because they haven’t yet resided in Alberta for the required six months to be eligible to vote.

“That’s dumb,” said one new military member, who owns a house in Cold Lake, about the residency rule. He wished to remain anonymous. “Our primary residence

is here and we pay taxes to the city.”

Six cynical residents polled by the Cold Lake Sun said their vote wouldn’t have made a difference.

“It did not resonate with me,” said Patricia Bertrand about the civic election. “No matter who gets in, nothing changes around here. We still will have high crime

rates. Young males will continue to drive their trucks like downtown is a racetrack . . . So, what’s the point?”

“The point is people fought for our right to vote,” said Smith-Ward, pointing to the fact that Alberta women didn’t get the right to vote until 1916, almost 50 years

after Canada became a country. “It is our civic duty.”

Machtmes said people have a responsibility to observe elected officials and determine who is doing a good job and who isn’t. “Then, like . . . weeds, we need to yank out the poor performers by the root,” he said.

Some said they were too busy to vote, having to work on both Election Day and during the advance polls.

At least five people that participated in the Cold Lake Sun's poll said, they didn’t care about municipal politics.

All four incumbents, who ran in this year’s election—Bob Buckle, Duane Lay, Vicky Lefebvre, and Chris Vining—and two new faces--Jürgen Grau and Kirk